1. 1. INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH USAGE LORETO TODD & IAN HANCOCK London
2. 2. First published 1986 by Croom Helm This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. First published in paperback 1990 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 1986 Loreto Todd and Ian Hancock All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Todd, Loreto International English usage. 1. English languageUsage I. Title II. Hancock, Ian 428 PE1460 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Todd, Loreto. International English usage. Includes index. 1. English languageUsageHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Hancock, Ian F. II. Title. PE1460.T64 1987 428 8628426 ISBN 0-203-97763-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-05102-9 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-709-94314-8 hb.
3. 3. Contents Introduction iv Contributors vi List of Symbols viii Pronunciation Guide ix INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH USAGE 1587 Index 588610
4. 4. Introduction In the four centuries since the time of Shakespeare, English has changed from a relatively unimportant European language with perhaps four million speakers into an international language used in every continent by approximately eight hundred million people. It is spoken natively by large sections of the population in Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, Southern Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America; it is widely spoken as a second language throughout Africa and Asia; and it is the most frequently used language of international affairs. In the past, there has been a tendency to regard the English of England as the standard for the world. In recent years, more acknowledgement has been made of North American, Australian and New Zealand varieties; but in countries such as Kenya or Malaysia, where English is used widely but is not normally a mother tongue, localisms are usually considered mistakes. Over the years many handbooks of English usage have been published, but International English Usage differs from its predecessors in two important ways. First of all, it acknowledges that speakers of English have won some of the battles with prescriptivists who, for as long as usage books have been written, have legislated against such practices as split infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions. International English Usage offers a balance between description and prescription, basing its insights on recent research throughout the English-speaking world. Secondly, it adopts the position that English belongs to all those who have learnt to speak it, and that established regional varieties, whether spoken natively or not, have as much legitimacy as British, American or Australian dialects of the language. The compilers have attempted to achieve two goals in the present work: to deal objectively with English as a world-wide language with many local varieties, and to distinguish legitimate regional practices from actual errors. This has not been easy, since a nebulous international written English is everywhere in competition with local, colloquial varieties, which often differ markedly from it. It is when the latter intrudes upon the former that conflict arises, and there will always be pundits who are ready to take local usage to task in the letters-to-the-editor columns. Without a doubt, much of what we have included here will be felt by some to be out of place in a usage book, but it is precisely because the world community of English speakers is so diverse, and because the language reflects this, that the need for such a book exists.
5. 5. We have tried to make International English Usage encyclopaedic in content. It contains precise information on: 1 speech in all its manifestations: the network norms, the regionally marked, the emerging standards; 2 the written language, offering clear rules on abbreviations, grammar, spelling and punctuation; 3 stylistic variants, from intimate to formal; 4 the language of literature; 5 the language of linguistics; 6 the conventions established for writing dissertations, essays and letters; 7 swear-words and linguistic taboos; 8 catch phrases, clichs, idioms, proverbs and slang; 9 prejudice in language: racism and sexism. International English Usage is designed for all users of English, whether students, teachers, editors, writers, librarians or even our fellow linguistswho, while adept at taking English to pieces, are not always so skilled at putting it together. It is designed to bridge the gaps between colloquial and written English, to illustrate regional richness and to clarify how and why words and phrases are used. It provides information on innumerable topics hitherto not discussed in a reference book of this kind. And, most important of all, perhaps, it challenges pedantry, causing the user to become aware of the English language as it is, rather than as others tell us it should be. Loreto Todd, University of Leeds Ian Hancock, University of Texas at Austin
6. 6. Contributors Many scholars from English-speaking communities around the world have contributed entries to International English Usage. We should like to record our debt and our gratitude to: Dr Mary Penrith, Research Associate to International English Usage. Professor George Cave, Department of English, University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana, South America. Professor Andrew Gonzales, President, De la Salle University, Manila, Philippines. Professor John Holm, Department of Linguistics, New York State University, New York, USA. Mrs Margery Houghton, Sea Point, Cape Town, South Africa. Dr R.D.Huddlestone, Department of English, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Dr Tony Hung, Department of English, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Dr John Ingram, Department of English, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Dr Munzali Jibril, Department of English and European Languages, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. Dr Devindra Kohli, Department of English, University of Delhi, Delhi, India. Dr David Lee, Department of English, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Dr Paul Mbangwana, Department of English, University of Cameroon, Yaound, Cameroon. Mrs Mona McCausland, Portadown Polytechnic, Portadown, Northern Ireland. Professor T.C.M.Milward, Department of Linguistics, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. Dr Satendra Nandan, School of Education, University of the South Pacific, Fiji. Jonathan Price, Croom Helm Publishers, Beckenham, Kent, UK. Dr Bruce Rigsby, Department of English, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Professor Gildas Roberts, Department of English, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. Ms Diane Sutton, Centre for British Teachers Ltd., Rabat, Morocco. Dun Ren Zhou, Department of Foreign Languages, Fudan University, Shanghai, The Peoples Republic of China. We should also like to record our thanks to the following for their help and support: Professor F.G.Cassidy, Wisconsin, USA. Dr Moira Chimombo, Zomba, Malawi. Professor Dennis Craig, Kingston, Jamaica. Robert A.Dunbar, Dublin, Ireland.
7. 7. Professor Walter Edwards, Chicago, USA. Ms B.Honikman, London, UK. Dr F.C.V.Jones, Berlin, Germany. Ms Annie Lee, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Mrs Katharine Mendelsohn, London, UK. Professor John Pride, Wellington, New Zealand. Mrs Aiko Reinecke, Honolulu, USA. Brother A.N.Seymour, Nashdom Abbey, UK. Dr Kashim Ibrahim Tala, Yaound, Cameroon. Ms Isabelle Tsang, Hong Kong.
8. 8. Symbols A limited number of symbols occur in International English Usage. The most frequently used of these are: means can be rewritten as. Thus AB+C means that A can be rewritten as B+C. means can be transformed into. Thus A B means that A can be transformed into B. ~ means is in free variation with. Thus A~B means that A and B are in free variation, just as dreamed and dreamt are for many speakers. < means derives/derived from. > means becomes/became. is the symbol for zero. * precedes a structure that is not acceptable. These and other symbols are explained in greater detail in the entries in which they occur. Bold print in the main text of an entry means that the word or phrase has its own entry in the book.
9. 9. Pronunciation Guide /i/ the sound of ee as in green the sound of i as in lip // the sound of e as in get // the sound of a as in man the sound of a as in arm the sound of o as in got the sound of u as in put the sound of aw as in lawn /u/ the sound of oo as in loom the sound of u as in but /(r)/ the sound of ur as in church the sound of e as in the the sound of ay as in day the sound of o as in go (UK) the sound of o as in go (USA) the sound of y as in sty the sound of ow as in how the sound of oy as in joy the sound of ear as in hear (UK) the sound of air as in hair (UK) the sound of ar as in war (UK) the sound of oor as in poor (UK)
10. 10. // the sound of th as in thin // the sound of th as in then // the sound of sh as in shot the sound of z as in azure // the sound of ng as in sing the sound of ll as in full the sound of le as in bottle the sound of m as in rhythm the sound of on as in cotton the sound of wh as in the Scottish pronunciation of which the glottal stop that can replace t in the middle or end of words in some UK pronunciations, for example metal and put indicates primary stress indicates secondary stress A number of other sounds such as the initial consonant in a Welsh pronunciation of Rhondda, are introduced and explained inindividual entries.
11. 11. a- words Apart from its use as an article, a occurs frequently in English. It can mean (for) each/every in: three times a week (i.e. every week) $1 a dozen (i.e. for each dozen) A- occurs as a prefix with a range of meanings. It can precede body parts and a number of common nouns to indicate direction or location: abreast ahead aside abed abroad aloft A number of a+body parts are now only used figuratively in the standard language: He was taken aback. (i.e. surprised) There was something afoot. (i.e. going on) It is found in a set of nautical items indicating position: abaft aboard astern condition: adrift afloat aground or a desire to establish contact: ahoy Prefix a- is also found in a number of words indicating a state or process: ajar alive atingle The a- form in these words derives from Old English. It is no longer productive as a prefix and although many a- words such as: aloud aloof asleep
12. 12. are commonly used, many others such as: ablush aflame aflutter are found mainly in literature. There is also an a-/an- prefix which derives from Greek a-/an-meaning not or without and which is still productive. It occurs in such words as: amoral asocial asymmetrical The an- form is the prefix used before vowels: anaemic anarchy anastigmatic See: affix, wake. abbreviations Abbreviations are appropriate in scholarly articles and footnotes (VP =verb phrase, cf.=confer=compare) and in documents where their use will not cause confusion. Elsewhere, abbreviations should be used sparingly. Many abbreviations consist of the initial letters of the significant words in a phrase, for example BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation). In speech, the main stress normally falls on the last letter of the abbreviation. Sometimes the letters used can combine to form new words or acronyms, for example NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). The titles Dr, Mr, Mrs, Messrs are always abbreviated when used with names. (Ms is not strictly an abbreviation but a blend of Mrs and Miss.) Other standard abbreviations are a.m. and p.m., BC and AD, Jr. (e.g. James Smith Jr.), and those for large organisations (e.g. CBI=Confederation of British Industry or TUC=Trades Union Congress). In formal writing, titles indicating high rank are given in full (President, Prime Minister, Reverend) but they may be abbreviated or clipped in informal writing especially when used with initials or first names (e.g. Professor Smith, Prof. J.A.Smith). Abbreviations may vary in different countries or in different institutions. A Bachelor of Arts degree, for example, is referred to as a B.A. in the UK and in many universities in the USA but as an A.B. in Harvard. Generally, contemporary UK usage avoids the use of full stops after abbreviations unless ambiguities would occur (as with a.m. becoming indistinguishable from am). In the USA, a full stop is usual after a lower case letter (Fr., Lat.). Latin abbreviations (such as c.= circa, e.g.=exempli gratia and i.e.=id est) tend to take full stops throughout the English-speaking world. Only one full stop is necessary after an abbreviation which occurs at the end of a sentence: International English usage 2
13. 13. His name was Dai Jones Jr. The article used before an abbreviation is determined by the pronunciation of the first letter (a UFO=unidentified flying object, an M.A.=Master of Arts). The plural forms of abbreviations are occasionally specialised (MSS =manuscripts, pp=pages, SS=saints), but they generally take lower case s (JPs=Justices of the Peace, MPs=Members of Parliament). The description above is concerned with abbreviations in written and formal styles. Certain abbreviations can also occur in informal speech and writing. Among these are: BFN (Bye for now) BLT (Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato) TCB (Taking Care of Business) TLC (Tender Loving Care) See: acronym, apostrophe, Bible, clipping, footnotes. -able, -ible In spoken English there is little or no difference in pronunciation between the suffixes - able and -ible and this fact adds to the uncertainty many people feel about spelling. Etymology is of little help. It is true that many -able endings derive from the Latin suffix -abilis, whereas -ible endings are from -ibilis. Such information only puts the problem back one language. There is, unfortunately, no easy set of rules, although the more recent the compound word the more likely is the suffix to be -able: permutepermutable televisetelevisable because -ible is no longer productive as a morpheme and because -able is meaningful not only as a morpheme but also as a word that allows compounds to be rephrased: permutableable to be permuted televisableable to be televised The following information will help to prevent spelling errors. 1 -able can be added to many verbs to form adjectives: laughlaughable interpretinterpretable thinkthinkable International English usage 3
14. 14. and negative adjectives may be formed by prefixing un-: unflappable unsinkable unworkable Where the verb ends with a consonant+e, as in like or shake, the e is dropped before - able and, incidentally, before all suffixes beginning with a vowel. A number of words such as likable/likeable have two acceptable forms, the former more widely used in the USA, the latter in the UK. It is probable that the form without e will become accepted worldwide. Where variants are possible, however, we provide them in 6 below. The only exceptions to this rule are words whose base forms end in -ce, -ee or -ge: pronounceable agreeable gaugeable 2 Where the base form ends in a vowel+y, the y is retained: buyable enjoyable sayable and where the base form ends in a consonant+y, the y is changed to i: denydeniable petrifypetrifiable varyvariable The exceptions to this rule are: flyable fryable neither of which is widely used. 3 Where the base form of a polysyllabic word ends in -ate, the -ate was originally dropped before -able was added: alienatealienable calculatecalculable, incalculable demonstratedemonstrable This rule does not apply to monosyllabic words: datedatable International English usage 4
15. 15. or to disyllabic words: dilatedilatable vacatevacatable In recent coinages and frequently in speech, -atable forms occur: infiltrateinfiltratable inundateinundatable 4 Base forms ending in a single consonant usually double the consonant before adding - able: forgettable battable (of a ground capable of being batted on) This rule only applies to one verb ending in -er, thus: conferrable All the others have -erable: preferable referable transferable 5 -ible endings occur in a fixed number of words deriving from Latin, such as: audible destructible tangible It is no longer a living suffix, and often we find dyads occurring with -ible in the Latin- derived (and usually formal) word and -able attached to the more frequently used verb: crediblebelievable edibleeatable risiblelaughable A useful though not infallible rule is that when we delete -able we are usually left with a recognisable verb. This is not true when we delete -ible (cf. ed-, cred-, ris-). 6 The following lists give the recommended spellings of words that people often worry about. (a) -able International English usage 5
16. 16. abominable accountable adaptable adorable advisable agreeable alienable amiable appreciable approachable arguable assessable available believable bribable bridgeable calculable capable changeable chargeable conceivable conferrable consolable curable datable debatable definable demonstrable desirable despicable dissolvable drivable durable educable equable excitable excusable expendable finable foreseeable forgettable forgivable gettable givable hirable immovable immutable impalpable impassable impeccable implacable impressionable indefatigable indescribable indispensable inflatable inimitable insufferable irreplaceable justifiable knowledgeable losable malleable manageable measurable noticeable operable peaceable penetrable perishable permeable pleasurable preferable pronounceable readable reconcilable regrettable reliable removable reputable serviceable suitable tolerable transferable undeniable unexceptionable unknowable unmistakable (b) -able/eable likable/likeable lovable/loveable salable/saleable sizable/sizeable usable/useable (c) -ible accessible admissible audible avertible combustible compatible comprehensible contemptible contractible controvertible convertible defensible destructible digestible discernible divisible edible eligible fallible feasible flexible forcible gullible illegible incorrigible incredible indelible indigestible intangible irascible irresistible legible negligible ostensible perceptible permissible plausible possible responsible reversible risible susceptible tangible unintelligible visible See: morpheme, spelling. International English usage 6
17. 17. abstract An abstract is a summary of a thesis/dissertation or scholarly article. It provides essential information on the claims, the development of the argument, the evidence used and the conclusions reached and should be intelligible to a person who has not read the original. Abstracts of articles generally contain no more than 200 words, and theses are usually abstracted in approximately 300 words. An abstract should be concise and specific, normally consisting of one coherent paragraph for an article and a number of paragraphs, each representing a major line of development, in a thesis. It is usual in abstracts relating to the Arts for the active voice to be used; abstracts relating to the Sciences often prefer the passive voice. See: prcis. Academy This word goes back to Greek, where it indicates the Platonic school of philosophy. It is now often used to refer to an institute of learning or to the French Academy, lAcadmie Franaise. This is an association of scholars and writers concerned with maintaining the standards, purity and eloquence of the French language. It was the Acadmie Franaise which in the late 1970s criticised the adoption of English items such as: le shopping le weekend The Acadmie Franaise has considerable prestige but there is little evidence that its pronouncements have limited the use of English words in the speech of the young. No such academy exists for the regulation of English, although several authoritative bodies have tried to introduce formal controls. The Royal Society, for example, was established in 1660 and it encouraged its members, scientists and writers alike, to develop a close naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions, clear senses, a native easiness. The USA too had its informal academicians. Webster, for example, helped modify spelling conventions, preferring -or to -our in words such as colour and the simplification of endings in words such as catalogue and programme, giving catalog and program. Today one may claim that the media, especially in the quality press and in the authoritative statements of radio and television, function like an academy in that they arbitrate on what is acceptable and they influence the entire population, encouraging a modification towards network norms. See: network norms, purist, Standard English. International English usage 7
18. 18. accent An accent relates to a persons pronunciation. Everyone who speaks has an accent but people often think of the accent which approximates to the prestigious network norms as being clearest, most intelligible, best, even accentless. Unlike French, which has an Acadmie to arbitrate on pronunciation, the English language has never had a single spoken standard. Nevertheless, the notion of a socially prestigious accent goes back at least as far as the sixteenth century, when grammarians began to suggest that the most acceptable form of pronunciation was that used by educated speakers in London and at the Court. (The term accent is often popularly confused with dialect. It is, however, perfectly possible to speak the standard language with a regional accent.) As far as the UK is concerned, the most prestigious accent is RP (Received Pronunciation). This variety was characterised in the mid-nineteenth century by A.J.Ellis and in the twentieth century by Daniel Jones. RP was originally an educated regional accent but it became the accent of social position and privilegethe accent used by educated speakers in the southeast of England, in Oxford, Cambridge and the public schools such as Eton and Harrow. In the 1930s it was adopted by the BBC as the accent for news broadcasts. In this way, RP came to be associated with the right way of speaking, and through its use in education and the media it has exerted an influence on all speech in the UK. In the early part of this century, it was impossible to hold a post of any seniority in the army, government or law unless ones speech approximated to RP. It was against this background that G.B.Shaw wrote Pygmalion: for the encouragement of people troubled with accents that cut them off from all high employment (Preface to 1912 edition) Nowadays in the UK there is more tolerance towards regionally-marked accents, but RP continues to be the most prestigious accent and the one still used by the media for all official pronouncements. The position is somewhat analagous in the USA, where the accents used by the regional networks exert an influence on listeners. However, there seems to be more tolerance of regionally marked accents in the USA than in the UK and it would probably be true to generalise that in the UK an accent other than RP connotes first class and then regional differences; in the USA an accent which differs from the network norms would probably connote first regional and then class or ethnic differences. Each country in which English is a mother tongue or an official language has its own pronunciation norms which are dealt with under separate headings. The most significant difference between varieties of English, however, often relates to the pronunciation of r. See: dialect, pronunciation, rhotic. International English usage 8
19. 19. accent marks Most of the accent marks in English are on words or names borrowed from other languages: Acute expos Bar (indicates long vowel) Breve (indicates short vowel) Cedilla faade Circumflex matre dhotel Dieresis (indicates a syllable) nave (2 syllables) Grave la mode Tilde maana Wedge (indicates consonant change) ernak, Doleel Umlaut (indicates change of vowel) Gttingen (Umlaut is often shown by inserting an e as in Goettingen.) Conventionally we do not indicate accent marks in French when upper case letters are used: Ecole Normale MAGAZIN DELEVES but with German words the umlaut is required even with capitals. Once a borrowed word becomes an accepted part of the vocabulary of English, the accent mark tends to be dropped as in cortege< cortge, detente
20. 20. More idiosyncratically, the poet G.M.Hopkins uses accent marks to distinguish particular stressed syllables when the normal orthography cannot signal their status adequately: Mrgart, re you grieving? Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Spring and Fall See: borrowing, -ed forms, foreign words in English. acquisition of language Linguists, educationists and psychologists have all attempted to explain how it is that a normal child who is chronologically and emotionally immature, whose motor skills are relatively undeveloped and whose responses to time, space and measurements are imprecise, is capable of acquiring the language or languages of his environment. To add to the achievement, we have to acknowledge that the mother tongue is acquired without any formal teaching, in a relatively short time (most children have a good command of the language(s) of their environment by the time they are four) and, stranger still perhaps, although no two children are exposed to identical language input, all children in the same speech community emerge speaking essentially the same language. To explain this phenomenon scholars have come up with two competing theories which, for simplicity, can be referred to as the Behaviourist and the Species-Specific schools. The behaviourist viewpoint had its first comprehensive treatment in B.F.Skinners Verbal Behavior (1957). The essential thesis here is that children acquire the language of their environments in very much the same way as dogs learn to beg for bones. The behaviour is rewarded and socially sanctioned. According to Skinnerians, children imitate the sounds, intonation patterns, words and structures that they hear around them and then by a process of generalisation they create new and acceptable patterns based on the old ones. There is considerable support for Skinners views in the evidence of childrens early speech and from the fact that speakers continue to expand their use of language by means of imitation, stimulation and the promise of reward. Such views cannot, however, satisfactorily account for everything in the acquisition process. From about the age of 18 months there is an explosion in the amount of speech children use, and much of it cannot be explained in terms of imitation. With English- speakers, for example, it is not uncommon for a child to learn see and saw by imitation, but then produce forms such as seed and sawed. It is almost as if the child has worked out that many verbs change from present to past by the addition of -ed and so is trying to regularise see. In this way, the child moves from a list to a system. Similarly, irregular International English usage 10
21. 21. plurals like men often become mans. Children do not learn these forms: they create them, as they do patterns for negation and interrogation. Because such linguistic behaviour seems to come from the children and not from an outside source many scholars believe that the human ability to acquire language is species specific. This means that human beings are genetically programmed to acquire language and they will talk automatically at a certain time just as they will walk automatically at a certain time, if they are given the right environment. The last proviso is important: a child is not a miniature talker but a potential talker in the same way that an acorn is a potential oak tree. Children do not develop into language users if they are denied the right conditions and environment. One fact which lends weight to the species-specific argument is the regularity and similarity of the onset of speech in all normal children. Eric Lenneberg called the developmental stages maturational milestones and the following stages seem to be universal: Birth to 3 months crying, gurgling, non-speech noises 3 to 6 months babbling 6 to 12 months intonational babbling 12 to 18 months words, set phrases 18 to 24 months rapid increase of vocabulary, rudimentary grammar 24 to 36 months inflections, transformations 36 to 60 months good approximation to adult norms Although there are a number of similarities between a childs acquisition of his first language and an adults acquisition of a second or foreign language, second-language learning does not follow an identical pattern. See: Behaviourism, Mentalism, pidgins and creoles. acronym Abbreviations that are pronounced as if they were words are called acronyms, the word deriving from Greek acr(o)=topmost point, beginning+onyma=name. Thus IATA (International Air Transport Association) is an acronym and the UN (United Nations) is not. Acronyms are formed by selecting the initial letters of all words necessary to produce a pronounceable word, even if this means including a preposition: AFASEAssociation for Applied Solar Energy ASHAction on Smoking and Health laserLight Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation Occasionally, to aid pronunciation, two letters or a syllable will be selected: LASSOLaser Search and Secure Observer radarRadio Detecting and Ranging International English usage 11
22. 22. quangoQuasi-autonomous non-goveramental organisation and, as radar and quango illustrate, they are written with lower case letters when they are adopted into the language as meaningful words in their own right. A large number of acronyms, perhaps the majority, relate to the military or to national security: NATONorth Atlantic Treaty Organisation SAMSurface-to-Air Missile STARTStrategic Arms Reduction Treaty but a number are also deliberately lighthearted: POPEPeople Opposing Papal Edicts POSSLQPerson of opposite sex sharing living quarters Acronyms are usually regarded as proper nouns and where they are written with upper case letters they are used without articles. The more widely used they are the more likely are they to become indistinguishable in their use from ordinary common nouns. The distinction between acronyms and abbreviations is not clear cut. There is no infallible means of determining what is a set of letters and what is a word, although pronunciation is the most reliable guide. Often, too, an abbreviation can become an acronym. UFO (Unidentified Flying Object), for example, is often regarded as an abbreviation but UFO enthusiasts pronounce it yufo, possibly analogising from info, and have coined the term ufology (the study of unidentified flying objects). Because most acronyms are also coinages, their status as words often depends on analogy with an existing word whose pronunciation they mimic. See: abbreviations, clipping, coinage, word formation. active voice In traditional grammars, English verbs were classified according to tense, voice and mood, largely because such distinctions were relevant to Latin verbs. The sentences: Julie arrived. and: Julie fed the chickens. are described as active and: International English usage 12
23. 23. The chickens were fed (by Julie). as passive. Active voice is thus the term used to categorise sentences, clauses and verb phrases where the subject of the sentence is the agent or instigator of the action. It is thus frequently associated with the pattern: actor/agent NP1+action VP+(goal/recipient NP2) whereas passive sentences have the structure: NP2+form of BE+past participle of V+(by+NP1) where by+NP1 is optional. The pattern of active constructions is closely related to the basic sentence order of English: Subject+Predicate+(Object)+(Complement)+(Adjunct) as in: They elected him president yesterday. and is most frequently found in speech and in contexts where the emphasis is on the agent. They are called active because the subject of the verb usually performs the action. We can contrast the different emphases in the following: John broke the plates. The plates were broken (by John). The plates broke. Although all English verbs can occur in an active construction: John wrote that book. and also: John arrived. John died. John resembled his father. only the first sentence can be transformed into the passive: That book was written by John. International English usage 13
24. 24. This is because arrive and die do not take objects and are thus barred from a transformation which involves transferring the object to the subject position. Resemble is barred for a different reason. John is not an agent in the sentence: John resembled his father. in the sense that no action of his brought about the resemblance. Traditional treatments of active and passive voice suggest that all transitive verbs (i.e. verbs which can take an object) can be passivised, but the example of resemble above shows that this generalisation does not always apply. It is true that intransitive verbs cannot occur in the passive but many transitive verbs (including endure, enjoy and suffer) often seem to be barred semantically from occurring in passive transformations. The simplest generalisation we can make about active voice is a formal one: all sentences which are not of the form: NP+BE+past participle of V (+ by NP) are active. See: case grammar, ergative, passive voice, transformations, verb phrase. address and reference The linguistic forms by which we address and refer to one another are not simply conventional but also reveal our attitudes towards the people concerned. Most Indo- European languages preserve second person pronominal distinctions (usually referred to as T and V from Latin tu=you singular and vos=you plural), allowing the users to imply such attitudes as respect, intimacy, formality or condescension. Such distinctions still existed in the pronouns of Middle English, enabling Chaucer to use thou and you in a variety of contexts. Thou could be used as a means of addressing: 1 one person 2 an addressee who was socially inferior 3 an intimate friend 4 a person normally addressed politely but for whom the speaker wished to indicate a loss of respect. Complementing the T forms, you could be used in addressing: 1 more than one person 2 a single addressee who was socially superior 3 a fellow member of the upper classes with whom one was not intimate. International English usage 14
25. 25. These patterns continued into the seventeenth century and were often used by dramatists to reveal the attitudes of their characters. In Shakespeares Othello, for example, Emilia switches from respectful you to contemptuous thou when she learns that Othello has murdered Desdemona: I do beseech you that I may speak with you. O good my Lord Do thy worst! This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven Than thou wast worthy her. Act 5 Scene 2 A misused T form could be extremely insulting and this point is made explicit in Twelfth Night when Sir Andrew Aguecheek is given specific instructions by Sir Toby Belch on how to ensure a duel with Cesario: Go, write in a martial hand; be curst and brief taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thoust him some thrice, it shall not be amiss. Act 3 Scene 2 The only Modern English pronominal remnant of the pattern is the use of thou in poetic, regional or religious language. The function of expressing social attitudes and role relationships has shifted from pronominal usage to address terms. This shift has occurred because modern Standard English has the invariable you to indicate singularity, plurality, intimacy and respect. Today, in the English-speaking world, the commonest forms of address and reference are: first name (e.g. John), endearment(s)+ first name (my dear John), last name (Brown), title+last name (Mr Brown) and terms of respect (sir, maam). Of these, the most frequently used are title+last name to express politeness, formality or respect (Dr Brown) and first name to express intimacy, equality, friendship or power. An employer, for example, might call an employee by his first name but would expect a title and last name back. It is rare for terms of address (i.e. the terms we use in person-to-person contact) to match terms of reference (i.e. the terms used in speaking about rather than to an individual). Although the above generalisations apply to most parts of the English-speaking world, some local and national customs cut across them. For example, the term love is normally expected to be an endearment, but it occurs commonly in Yorkshire speech as an apparent expression of solidarity with no distinction of sex. It is not unusual to hear one Yorkshireman address another as love. Expressions such as buddy, cobber or flower may be heard in other parts of the world, but they tend to be more limited in application than love. In the trade union movement terms such as brother and comrade are used specifically to stress solidarity. Certain terms of respect are also culturally or geographically specific. For example, in many African societies respect for ones elders is expressed in titles. Thus a woman who has children or a woman of some other special status is respectfully addressed as Mama or Ma even by those not related to her. Newspapers have evolved a style of their own with regard to courtesy titles. In general, they advise: International English usage 15
26. 26. 1 titles should not be used for the first reference to a person. First and last names are preferred: Hilary Adams, Michael Little. 2 Mr should only be used when combined with Mrs: Mr and Mrs Green. 3 the first reference to a married woman should be first and last name: Penelope Jones. Subsequent references may be to Mrs Jones. The use of Mrs Michael Jones should be avoided unless it is preferred by Mrs Jones. The second reference to an unmarried woman should involve the last name prefaced by Miss or Ms, depending on the individuals preference. If a woman prefers the title Ms, then reference to her marital status should be avoided unless it is essential to the story. Most newspapers follow such guidelines but may vary this style if someone specifically asks to be referred to in a different way. A Nigerian woman, for example, who prefers Mallama to Mrs, will be referred to in the way she specifies. addresses The conventions for writing addresses are designed for quick interpretation and minimal ambiguity. Practices tend to vary slightly from one country or language to another, but international communication is reducing the differences. 1 The format for an address represents a progress from personal (and small) to impersonal (and large) thus: title+first name/initial(s)+surname (number of office/flat/apartment+name of building) number of building/house+name of street name of town+post/zip code (name of county) (name of country) A comma may be used at the end of each line except the last, which is given a full stop (where punctuation marks are used). Increasingly, the practice is to omit all unnecessary punctuation: Mr Brian Smith Ms Mary Smith 52 Otley Road 1234 Sunset Boulevard Leeds LS16 4BT Pasadena West Yorkshire California 91124 England United States of America 2 On envelopes, the name and address are usually written with each line beginning at an arbitrary left-hand margin. Occasionally, although much less frequently, the lines may be indented, each starting between two and five letter spaces to the right of the line above. In letters, the address of the sender is given at the top right-hand corner of the first page. The lines are usually directly below each other although they too may be indented, International English usage 16
27. 27. usually two spaces for each line. If the name and address of the recipient are given they should begin one space below the writers details, with each new line beginning at the left-hand margin. See: dates, letters. adjective Adjectives are descriptive words that: 1 modify nouns and pronouns: a tall man He is tall. 2 can have comparative and superlative forms: big bigger biggest hateful more hateful most hateful 3 can be modified by an adverb: a very tall man He is very tall. Adjectives can occur in two positions. When they occur before a noun as in: a lovely girl happy children they are called attributive adjectives. When they occur after a copula verb such as BE and SEEM as in: The boy was cheerful. They seem intelligent. they are called predicative adjectives. Many adjectives can occur in both positions: a happy child The child appeared happy. but some adjectives tend to occur in one position only. Elder, mere and utter, for example, are found in attributive position whereas a-words, ill and well are more likely International English usage 17
28. 28. to be used predicatively. It is perhaps worth stressing the flexibility of English at this point. While ill and well are frequently used predicatively they can occur in constructions such as: Its an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Hes not a well man. Adjectives normally precede the nouns they modify but in a number of fixed expressions, all of them borrowed from other languages, the adjective immediately follows the noun: attorney general court martial secretary general whisky galore Most adjectives are regular with regard to forming comparatives and superlatives. Monosyllabic adjectives, frequently occurring disyllabic adjectives and all disyllabic adjectives ending in -y form the comparative by adding -er and the superlative by adding -est. When an adjective ends in one vowel+one consonant, e.g. big, fat, the consonant is doubled before -er/-est. All other adjectives form their comparatives and superlatives by using more/most before the base form: green greener greenest yellow yellower yellowest lively livelier liveliest thin thinner thinnest When two nouns are compared, the comparative form of the adjective must be selected: John and Bill are both strong athletes but Bill is the stronger. Often, in colloquial speech, the superlative form is incorrectly selected. When adjectives co-occur, they tend to do so in a fixed order which usually involves such a pattern as: +5+4+3+2+1+noun In position 1 we tend to find nouns used adjectivally to indicate purpose: a fish bowl In position 2 we often find nouns indicating materials: a glass fish bowl International English usage 18
29. 29. In position 3 we sometimes have an indication of origin: a Wexford glass fish bowl In position 4 we often have colour: a blue Wexford glass fish bowl and in position 5 we find the possibility of adjectives of intensification, size, age, shape and temperature: a huge blue Wexford glass fish bowl Such adjectives also appear in a fixed order: a great big old square building a small round ice-cold object We rarely find lists of more than four adjectives but when five or more co-occur they are usually in the above order and they are usually separated by commas. There is no comma between the adjective in position 1 and the noun. Adjectives can also co-occur after copula verbs: He was short, old and ugly. the two final adjectives usually being linked by and. Occasionally, adjectives can be used as nominals. This happens in two main ways: 1 adjectives are used with the definite article to indicate a group: Their aim was to help the poor, the sick and the ignorant. The unemployed have the same needs as the employed. 2 adjectives are often used when the noun to which they refer is contextually apparent: How do you like itwhite or black? (when offering coffee) Is it fully automatic? (of a washing machine) and when superlative forms are selected: I want the cheapest even if it isnt the best. A number of adjectives are related to causative verbs: Brand X makes your whole wash white/whitens your whole wash. Brand Y makes your skin soft/softens your skin. International English usage 19
30. 30. Often the verbal equivalent is preferred in advertising because it can imply both the base form of the adjective and its comparative: Brand Y softens your skin. Here softens can imply makes it soft and makes it softer, the second being a much weaker claim than the first. Other adjectives are related to noun phrase and preposition phrase complements: John is cheerful. John is a cheerful person. John is in a cheerful mood. The preposition phrases in such related groups often involve such nouns as disposition, mood or nature. When adjectives are related to nouns as, for example: powerful power silent silence then they can often be paired with preposition phrases containing the noun: He became powerful. He came into power. He went silent. He lapsed into silence. COME is often used when the complement is positive or pleasant and GO when it is not: He came into money. It went out of control. It came right/good. It went wrong/bad. Adjective phrases and clauses function like adjectives in that they modify nouns. With the exception of rank-shifted phrases and clauses used mainly for journalistic or humorous purposes: an off-the-cuff remark There she was with her I-couldnt-care-less expression. noun phrases and clauses tend to follow the nouns they modify: The man in the white suit comes from France. The man who was wearing a white suit suddenly went out. See: adverb, aspect, deep structure, transformational grammar, verb. International English usage 20
31. 31. adjunct This term has been used very differently by a number of linguists. Its most general definition is that an adjunct is the sentence unit which is not the subject, not the predicate, not the object and not the complement: S(A) (Sub) Pred (Obj) (Comp) (A) It is an optional element in a sentence, optional in that the sentence is still grammatical without it. Thus, in the sentence: Yesterday he arrived at noon. we have two adjuncts: yesterday and at noon, both of which can be deleted, leaving the grammatically acceptable: He arrived. Adverbials are the commonest adjuncts in English but some scholars have also classified attributive adjectives and vocatives as adjuncts. It is certainly true that: Where did you put that big red pen, John? can function as an acceptable sentence with the adjectives and John removed: Where did you put that pen? See: adverb, modifier, sentence. adverb Adverbs are often morphological variants of adjectives: absolute absolutely beautiful beautifully exceptional exceptionally but, whereas adjectives modify nominals, adverbs modify verbs: She sang beautifully. International English usage 21
32. 32. adjectives: Hes a happily married man. other adverbs: They both ran exceptionally quickly. preposition phrases: We were absolutely out of our depth. and sentences: Interestingly, I wouldnt have noticed the mistake if she hadnt drawn my attention to it. Like adjectives, adverbs have comparative and superlative forms: quickly more quickly most quickly and several words can function both as adjectives and adverbs. The most frequently occurring items in this category are: cheap, clean, dead (=completely), easy, fast, fine, free (=without paying), hard, high, just (=recently), late (=not in time), loud, low, pretty, quick, real (=very), sharp (=punctually), slow, straight, sure (=certainly), well, wide and wrong. Adverbs are among the most mobile elements in a sentence and can occur in three positions: 1 at the beginning: Suddenly I understood what it meant. 2 in the middle: He was suddenly aware of the difference. 3 at the end: She left very suddenly. As we might expect, however, not all adverbs can occur in all positions. The adverbs that are most likely to occur in initial position are discourse markers such as actually, alternatively, briefly, finally, however, perhaps, unfortunately; adverbs of time such as today, yesterday; adverbs of frequency such as occasionally, sometimes. In literary style and for emphasis we often foreground adverbs: International English usage 22
33. 33. Ah distinctly I remember Gently does it. When adverbs occur in the middle of a sentence, they precede all verbs except auxiliaries: I usually go there after work. He invariably thinks hes right. Im usually exhausted after jogging. I can usually spot the winner. They can, however, precede auxiliaries, especially in speech, if extra emphasis is required: I really do try hard. Adverbial phrases and clauses function like adverbs with the exception that they normally occur at the beginning or the end of a sentence: After three days I decided to forget what had happened. When he arrived we were all delighted. He visits us from time to time. I cant make it on Tuesday. The tendency to use adjectives as adverbs as in: He talks real nice. has been so frequently stigmatised that many speakers hypercorrect by using inappropriate -ly forms such as: more importantly thusly See: adjective, comparison of adjectives and adverbs, foregrounding, hypercorrection, sentence. affinity The term affinity implies a relationship between two items and collocates with the prepositions between and with: International English usage 23
34. 34. There is a marked affinity between adjectives and adverbs. John has a certain affinity with most people. The use of affinity with for is limited to scientific English when a substance is said to have an affinity for another if it unites easily with it. The use of for in non-scientific English is regarded as incorrect. affirmative Sentences are often classified as being declarative, imperative and interrogative with all three being capable of occurring in the affirmative: I love Paris. Go away. Are you tired? or negative: I dont love Paris. Dont go away. Arent you tired?/Are you not tired? Occasionally, to avoid misunderstanding, the words affirmative and negative replace yes and no: Q. Are the burglars still in the house? A. Affirmative. Q. Can you see the runway? A. Negative. affix Affix derives from Latin affixare, meaning attach to, and it comprehends prefixes, that is morphemes which are attached to the beginning of a word: un+fairunfair suffixes, that is morphemes which are attached to the end of a word: International English usage 24
35. 35. fright+fulfrightful and infixes, that is morphemes which can be fitted into a word. In English, prefixes and suffixes occur frequently but infixes are limited to a number of disyllabic words, such as bloody, blooming (and their more taboo equivalents) which can be slotted into polysyllabic words directly in front of the main stress: abso'lutely+bloodyabsobloodylutely inter'national+bloominginterbloomingnational Prefixes are morphemes like anti-, de-, dis-, ex-, in- (il-/im-/ir-), re-, un- which can precede words, modifying their meaning. The majority are of Latin origin and they can affect the meaning of the root word in terms of direction: contra+flowcontraflow retro+rocketsretrorockets negation: in+edibleinedible in+legalillegal quality/degree: quasi+officialquasi-official semi+circlesemicircle and quantity: multi+nationalmultinational poly+syllabicpolysyllabic Suffixes are morphemes like -en, -er, -ing, -ise/ize, -ly, -less, -ling, -ness which can follow words and modify their meaning: dark+endarken duck+lingduckling The majority of suffixes in English are Anglo-Saxon in origin and whereas prefixes tend not to change the word class: pro+create (verb)procreate (verb) un+happy (adj)unhappy (adj) suffixes are often associated with word-class changes: International English usage 25
36. 36. legal (adj)+iselegalise (verb) ugly (adj)+nessugliness (noun) Words can have two or more prefixes: unprepossessing and two or more suffixes: hatefulness and occasionally two or more prefixes and suffixes as in: antidisestablishmentarianism See: derivation, morpheme, prefix, suffix, word formation. African English It is estimated that there are approximately five thousand languages in the world, at least half of which are found in Africa. Africa is thus the most multilingual continent and no brief summary could possibly do full justice to the variety of languages found there nor to the numerous influences to which English has been exposed. It is possible, however, to divide the continent into six main areas, each of which has a continuum of Englishes: 1 Central Africa 2 East Africa 3 North Africa 4 South Africa 5 Southern Africa 6 West Africa See: Central African English, East African English, North African English, South African English, Southern African English, West African English. International English usage 26
37. 37. age Generally, a persons age is expressed according to the conventions that apply to numbers. There are some differences, however. When the age is given predicatively, words are used: She is twenty-one. She is twenty-one years old. the first being preferred in the UK and the second in the USA. When the age is given attributively, the elements are hyphenated and, to avoid excessive hyphenation, numbers are often preferred: The twenty-one-year-old girl was appointed. The 21-year-old girl was appointed. See: numbers. agent This term relates to the instigator of the action or the state indicated by the predicate in a sentence: John broke the window. The dog ate the model plane. The wind tore up the trees. Normally the agent is animate, as in the first two examples, but occasionally, especially when natural phenomena like drought, hurricanes and floods are concerned, inanimate agents occur. In active sentences, the agent is often the subject. We can see whether or not the subject is the agent by passivising the sentence. If we look at two sentences which appear similar: John opened the door. The key opened the door. we notice that the passive versions differ: International English usage 27
38. 38. The door was opened by John. The door was opened with the key. revealing that John was the agent whereas the key was the instrument with which the door was opened. See: active voice, case grammar, ergative, passive voice. aggravate Etymologically aggravate means increase the gravity of, make worse as in: The dismal weather aggravated his low spirits. and linguistic purists have argued that its colloquial meaning of annoy, irritate as in: The loud music really aggravated me. should be avoided. It is difficult to assess why people who criticise the shift of aggravate from make worse to annoy do not condemn the change of meaning of prevent from come before to inhibit or the change of regiment from government to troop. Purists tend to overlook the fact that meaning changes are inevitable in a language and that no amount of dogmatic assertion will prevent them. Since few people argue that silly should still mean holy, for example, we have to look for another reason why purists insist on the fossilisation of a number of favoured words (e.g. jejune, mutual, nice, presume). Perhaps the insistence on etymology is related less to a desire for good English than to the exclusion of some users from the elite circle of what the Times of London called proper users of English. There is a distinction to be made between natural meaning change and inaccurate or imprecise use of language. See: Academy, chestnuts, etymology, malapropism, nice, problem words, purist, semantic change, shibboleth. ago Ago is a temporal marker which links a time in the past with the present: I first saw her five years ago. International English usage 28
39. 39. That happened a long time ago. It thus does not usually collocate with non-past or aspectual verb forms. These tend to co- occur with since and for: It is five years since I saw her. I have not seen her for five years. Ago can take a following clause: It was five years ago that we met. but it should not be used with since: *It was/is five years ago since we met. because since involves looking at the present from a point in the past: It is twelve years since we first met. and ago reverses the viewpoint: We first met twelve years ago. See: since. agreement Agreement involves a type of harmonisation between different parts of a language. Thus in English we have: The boy sings. The boys sing. but never: *The boy sing. *The boys sings. In French, determiners and adjectives agree with the nouns they modify and so we have: International English usage 29
40. 40. la fermire franaise le fermier franais There is comparatively little agreement left in contemporary English. With the exception of the Verbs BE, HAVE and to a much lesser extent DO, we find it only in the non-past tense where a third person singular subject triggers off the use of a change in the verb: I/you/we/they run he/she/it run+s Such agreement is not found in the past tense, where all subjects take the same verb form: I/you/he/we/they ran Often, subject complements are in agreement with both subject and predicate: John is a good boy. John and his brothers are good boys. It wasnt my dog. They werent my dogs. It is, however, possible to find sentences such as: His collected papers are now a book. His feet are his greatest asset. It is the subject which determines the agreement in the predicate. Similarly, object complements tend to show agreement with the object: He called his son a fool. He called his sons fools. although this does not happen when the complement is a proper noun: He called the city Georgetown. He called the cities Georgetown. In recent grammatical analyses the term concord is often preferred to agreement. See: complement, concord, modality. International English usage 30
41. 41. aint Aint is one of the most widespread nonstandard forms in the language, occurring as a regional and class variant throughout the English-speaking world. It has many roles, being used as an undifferentiated non-past negative form of BE: I/you/he/we/they aint here no more. I/you/he/we/they aint saying nothing. as an undifferentiated auxiliary where the standard language requires HAVE: I/you/he/we/they aint got no more money. I/you/he/we/they aint been out all week. and it is also found without an overt subject in some varieties of US speech: Aint no joke. Aint occurs most frequently in the spoken medium but it has been employed by fiction writers as a stereotyping word to signal a speakers low social status or regional origins. In Great Expectations, for example, Dickens uses a literary variant ant as a linguistic device to emphasise Joe Gargerys humble status: And I ant a master-mind and Mark Twain employs aint as one of the characterising elements in the speech of Tom in Tom Sawyer Abroad: Why the Holy Landthere aint but one. Occasionally aint is adopted by educated speakers as a marker of solidarity. President Reagan successfully used the slogan: You aint seen nothin yet. in his 1984 presidential campaign. See: nonstandard English, speech in literature, style. International English usage 31
42. 42. alienable, inalienable Many languages distinguish between possession which is transitory and non-essential, for example a spoon, and possession which is permanent or essential, for example a leg. Possessions of the first kind are alienable whereas those of the second kind are inalienable. Gaelic makes this distinction overt in such structures as: mo chuid eadaigh (lit. my share of clothes) mo chuid gruaige (lit. my share of hair) and: manam (my soul) mo chos (my foot/leg) where any possession that can be lost can be prefixed by the equivalent of share of. Family, friends and religion are treated as inalienable. English does not mark this type of distinction overtly except in the organisation of adjectives which co-occur to modify a noun. If we look at noun phrases such as: poor old Joe ancient Egyptian architecture the nice little fat Corgi pup we see that the more permanent the characteristic/attribute the closer it comes to the noun it modifies. Poverty, for example, is more easily counteracted than age and the pups most inalienable characteristic is its Corgi-ness. The distinction between alienable and inalienable possession is not as clearly marked in English as in other languages although some speakers of US English use the variants got and gotten to mark alienability: Ive got two brothers. (inalienable) Ive gotten two trucks. (alienable) See: bring/take, location, speaker orientation. all, both All and both can function as determiners: International English usage 32
43. 43. All the children arrived late. Both the children arrived late. and as pronouns: All is not lost. Both are useful. They can occur in a number of different patterns: All/both+(definite article) All/both+(possessive adjective) All/both+(demonstrative adjective) All/both+(of+possessive adjective/personal object pronoun) NP/pronoun+all/both as in: All/both the letters arrived late. All/both his horses were scratched before the race. All/both those words are misspelt. All/both of his children are tall. All/both of us are exhausted. The girls all/both love swimming. We all/both thought the same. All/both can occur as the subject (as above), object or complement: It pleased all/both of us. It pleased us all/both. (Notice that when a personal pronoun occurs before all/both, then of is not required.) They are also found after the first element of a complex verb phrase: We have all/both had as much as we can take. They may all/both have seen the film. When all/both occur in the subject position they tend to be negated differently. Such sentences as: All the letters arrived late. are normally negated: Not all of the letters arrived late. International English usage 33
44. 44. whereas sentences such as: Both the letters arrived late. are usually negated as follows: Neither letter arrived late. As well as meaning everyone, all can approximate to the meaning of complete, entire: Ive done it all my life. You cant work all the time. In this role, all resembles whole and not both: He has worked hard all his life/his whole life. and it takes a singular noun. All can also function adverbially, especially in colloquial speech: Hes all at sea. Shes all washed up. Both often occurs in a balanced structure with and: They drink both tea and coffee. It is usual for both parts to be followed by structurally equivalent items: They like both cricket and baseball. (noun+noun) He can both sing and dance. (verb+verb) See: determiner, either. all right, alright In UK English only the two-word spelling is acceptable: It will be all right on the night. In the USA, alright is not fully accepted. International English usage 34
45. 45. alliteration Alliteration developed as an aid to memory and is based on the repetition of consonant sounds in closely associated words or syllables. In the following couplet from Tennysons Lotus Eaters, for example, we have an interlacing pattern of r, f, l and t: Ripens and fades and falls and hath no toil Fast rooted in the fruitful soil. A number of scholars have claimed that vowels can also alliterate but we shall use the term assonance in our description of vowel patterning, leaving alliteration for consonants. Alliteration is a type of sound symbolism which can appeal to the listeners ear, evoking associations and conditioned reflexes. It also links the alliterating words, focusing attention on their interrelated meanings. In the following lines from Shakespeares sonnet number 30, for example, alliteration helps to forge a link between the debtors court (sessions, summon; waste) and emotions (sweet, sigh; woes, wail): When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear times waste. Alliteration is a traditional Germanic device, preceding rhyme in English poetry. In Old English verse, the lines were divided into halves, the first half line having two alliterating segments and the second half one, as in the following lines: hreran mid hondum hrimcealde sae wadan wraeclastas: wyrd bith ful araed. When French verse began to influence literature in England, rhyme tended to replace alliteration as a metrical device: Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breath Inspired hath in every holt and heath The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne Chaucer, Prologue to the Canterbury Tales International English usage 35
46. 46. but alliteration has never been totally absent from English poetry and often when poets seek to register strongly-felt emotion or to recreate proverbial wisdom they tend to use alliteration: Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot! A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot. Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on. Yeats, The Great Day In prose, alliteration has been employed to reinforce rhetorical patterns, as in Robert Greenes The Carde of Fancie (1584): Nay, there was no fact so filthie, which he would not commit, no mischief so monstrous, which he would not enterprise: no daunger so desperate, which he would not advanture to focus attention on details, as in Frank OConnors story In the Train: The woman sat alone. Her shawl was thrown open and beneath it she wore a bright blue blouse. The carriage was cold, the night outside black and cheerless, and within her something had begun to contract or for the sheer enjoyment of revelling in sound patterns, as in Dylan Thomass Holiday Memory: I remember the sea telling lies in a shell held to my ear for a whole harmonious, hollow minute by a small, wet girl in an enormous bathing- suit marked Corporation Property. Because of its value as an aid to memory, alliteration is commonly found in proverbs: Look before you leap. Wilful waste makes woeful want. in clichs: come hell or high water tried and true and in advertising: Liltwith the totally tropical taste. International English usage 36
47. 47. Generally speaking, it is impossible to avoid some alliterative patterns in any prose style, but this device should be used with care since it could distract attention from the argument to details of style. See: assonance, sound symbolism. allusion, delusion, illusion These words are often confused or misused. An allusion is a passing, indirect reference to an unnamed person, place, time or event: While telling us her present problems, she made several allusions to her troubled past. A literary allusion makes a reference to a writer or his work. The allusion may be in the form of a quotation (sometimes incorrectly remembered) but assumed to be well known: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Tomorrow to fresh fields It may also be a parody of the style or content of an unnamed work, as Fieldings Shamela is a parody of Richardsons Pamela, and Popes Dunciad alludes to Paradise Lost in both form and content. A delusion is a mental condition involving a sincerely held false impression or opinion: Lady Macbeth suffered from the delusion that nothing could remove Duncans blood from her hands. An illusion is a false image or concept, a false belief often based on misleading evidence: Because he always wore a beret she was under the illusion that he was French. He was, in fact, a baker from Barnsley. See: malapropism. International English usage 37
48. 48. alphabet Alphabet derives from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta, and is a term meant to designate an inventory of letters (or signs) which correspond, often very roughly, to the sounds of a particular language. An alphabet which provided a perfect one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds would be a phonemic alphabet. No European language has a phonemic alphabet, although the Spanish alphabet is much closer to being phonemic than the English one is. In English, for example, the same sound can be represented by different letters: machine sheep sugar and the same letter can represent different sounds as in: cat ceiling Linguists have constructed the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which offers a set of letters and diacritics (signs that can be placed above and below letters) which can represent all the sounds of every language. See: orthography, phoneme, pronunciation, spelling, spelling pronunciation. also Also is an adverb which is more common in the written than in the spoken medium, where too or as well are preferred: I have also got a little sister/I have a little sister too. She had also lived in Greece/She had lived in Greece as well. Its normal position is before the verb when the verb phrase is simple: They also sent some flowers. after the auxiliary in a complex verb phrase: They have also sent some flowers. International English usage 38
49. 49. and after copula BE: He is also a highly skilled mechanic. Occasionally in speech also is used as a conjunction suggesting that what follows it is an afterthought: Smoking is bad for your health, also it is expensive. This usage is less acceptable in writing than: Smoking is bad for your healthit is also expensive. where the afterthought is signalled by parentheses or a dash and where the adverb has its usual position. Also can occur at the beginning of a sentence to offer special prominence to a phrase: Also on the platform were the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. but the use of also followed by a comma in sentence initial position: Also, Id like some information on housing. is regarded as stylistically awkward. Also, like too and as well, tends to occur only in affirmative sentences: He also likes peanut butter./He doesnt like peanut butter either. Did John go too?/Did John not go either? She tried ballet as well./She didnt try ballet either. alternately, alternatively Alternately means first one and then the other in sequence and refers to an ordering of two: She revised history and geography alternately so that she would not become bored with either subject. Alternate as a verb and adjective also implies an ordering of two: International English usage 39
50. 50. On Sundays we alternated between visiting my parents and visiting my husbands. We played bridge and chess on alternate evenings. Alternatively means a choice between two mutually exclusive possibilities: She may marry George. Alternatively, she may marry Herman. Although alternatively specifically referred to a choice between two, its meaning has been widened to include a choice of several possibilities. This widening of meaning applies also to alternative as a noun and an adjective: She had so many alternatives she couldnt make up her mind. She had three alternative options with regard to her future: she could get a job, get married or go to university. See: problem pairs. although, though Although and though are closely related in form and meaning and are freely interchangeable in most contexts. The following differences should, however, be noted: 1 Although can only be used as a conjunction, that is, it can introduce a clause: Although he was poor, he was honest. 2 Although can be used in any style from extremely formal to intimately informal whereas though tends to be limited to informal usage. 3 Though can be used at the end of a sentence as a form of concessive emphasiser: He wasnt well prepared for the test, though. Although can never be used in this context. The use of but in sentence-final position is characteristic of speakers in the north east of England, Northern Ireland and Australia: He wasnt well prepared for the test, but. Such usage is both informal and regionally marked. 4 For emphasis, even may be combined with though (but never with although): Even though I was well prepared, I found the test hard. International English usage 40
51. 51. 5 Though (but not although) can be used as an adverbial filler: The best preparation of all, though, is a good nights sleep. 6 The clipped forms altho and tho occur in US usage but are only fully acceptable in very informal letters and notes. See: Australian English, clipping, fillers. ambiguity The term ambiguity is applied to a structure that is capable of more than one interpretation. There are two main types of ambiguity: lexical and syntactic. Lexical ambiguity is a common feature of many languages and derives from the fact that many words have more than one meaning. Spare, for example, can mean extra and healthily lean and both meanings are possible (if not equally probable) in: His body was spare. Lexical ambiguity often goes unnoticed in speech because the context suggests one meaning rather than another. In the context of architecture, for example, we would interpret: His designs were unacceptable. as drawings, but in the context of personal behaviour as intentions. With syntactic ambiguity we find structures capable of more than one interpretation. In English, two of the most ambiguous structures are: 1 Ving+NPVing can be either an adjective modifying the noun or a verb taking an object: Eating apples can be good for you. 2 NP+NPTo illustrate the ambiguity of NP+NP, we only have to look at such a list as: apple pie (a pie made from apples) bird sanctuary (a sanctuary for birds) field mouse (a mouse that lives in the fields) silkworm (worm that produces silk) A further example of NP+NP ambiguity occurs when an adjective precedes the first nominal: International English usage 41
52. 52. young men and women which can be interpreted as both: young men and women of any age young men and young women Ambiguity is often cultivated by advertisers: Go to work on an egg. Let colour go to your head. and by poets. G.M.Hopkins plays on the NP+NP ambiguity in: Not, Ill not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee Alliteration links carrion and comfort and the various possible meanings are exploited: comfort composed of carrion, comfort for carrion, comfort that lives in carrion, comfort that is carrion and comfort that produces carrion. In literature, such ambiguity extends the range of references, adding to the complexity of the work. See: pun, syllepsis. America(n) The word America is used in two distinct ways: 1 to refer to the New World, including North, Central and South America 2 to refer to the United States of America, the USA. A similar point can be made about American, which can refer to anyone from the Americas including Argentines, Brazilians, Canadians and inhabitants of the USA. Occasionally, the term Anglo is used by American Hispanics to refer to any mother- tongue speaker of English. See: US English. Americanism This term refers to: 1 words borrowed into US English from American Indian languages: International English usage 42
53. 53. moccasin wampum from African languages: jamboree jazz from Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Yiddish: cookie prairie pretzel rodeo lox 2 words or expressions which originated in the USA: palimony realtor bark up the wrong tree be between a rock and a hard place 3 words and word forms now obsolescent or obsolete in UK English: closet gotten 4 words which are characteristic of US (and often Canadian) usage: condo (UK flat) elevator (UK lift) railroad (UK railway) See: UK and US words, US English. Amerindian influences The languages of the Indians of both North and South America (Amerindians) have contributed a considerable number of words to US and world English, some directly and some through French and Spanish. Many of these are the names of New World animals: coyote raccoon skunk natural phenomena: hurricane pampas food: International English usage 43
54. 54. chilli tomato potato clothing: moccasin poncho cultural items: caucus pow-wow totem and a number of place names such as: Okefenokee Tallahassee Yosemite See: Americanism, US English. among, amongst There is no semantic difference between these words, but the use of one rather than the other has regional and probably age implications. Amongst occurs in northern and eastern parts of the UK and is regarded by young speakers as being archaic and/or literary. Many speakers use amongst in prayers: Blessed art thou amongst women. but among in all other contexts and it is likely that amongst will gradually cease to be used. Among/amongst must be followed by a plural noun or pronoun: They divided the food among the poor/them. or by a noun which may be singular in form but is plural in meaning: They divided the winnings among the crew/family/staff/workforce. Some scholars argue that among should be carefully distinguished from between: They divided the cake among the boys (more than two). They divided the cake between the two. International English usage 44
55. 55. Current usage permits the use of between when more than two are indicated, especially in the spoken medium: Share that equally between the lot of you. but among always implies more than two. See: while. anacoluthon Anacoluthon (plural anacolutha) from Greek anakolouthon meaning inconsistency in logic involves a deliberate or accidental change from one syntactic structure to another within a single sentence: He came over to me andyoure not listening. You should really try toI only want whats best. Most people produce anacolutha in spontaneous speech and in unedited writing. See: dangling participle. analogy Analogy has three main language-related meanings, all concerned with the comparison of different items that share some significant characteristic. 1 Analogy is a figure of speech by which two items are compared or equated: Shes a Greta Garbo type. 2 Analogy may be used to explain the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar. For example, an arithmetical process such as subtraction may be explained to a child by giving him four apples and taking away two, showing that 42=2. 3 The term analogy is frequently used in linguistics to describe the tendency of all users of language to regularise and classify according to the familiar rules of their mother tongue. Thus, for example, many young children produce past tense forms like bited, comed and seed by analogy with the regular marking of the past time in English. Analogising is evident at all levels of the language. In vocabulary it may be seen in the development of back formations such as craze and laze by analogy with blaze or gaze; in pronunciation it is found in the anglicising of non-English sounds, making loch rhyme International English usage 45
56. 56. with rock and rouge with stooge; in morphology it helps to account for the formation of new compounds such as telethon (from television+ marathon) or coinages such as pinx (from permanent+jinx); and in syntax it is apparent in every speakers ability to form unique sentences and utterances in accordance with the rules of the language. Analogy is a motivating force for both comprehensibility and change. See: argument, figures of speech. analytic Comparative linguists have, by examining how words behave in different languages, established two main types of human language: analytic and synthetic. Synthetic languages are further subdivided into agglutinating, inflecting and polysynthetic. 1 In analytic (also called isolating) languages all words are composed of one invariable morpheme and syntactic relationships are indicated mainly by word order. An example of such a language is Korean. 2 In agglutinating languages the word is composed of a series of distinct morphemes where each morpheme has a specific meaning. Swahili is an agglutinating language. 3 In inflecting (also called fusional) languages words are composed of more than one morpheme but it is usually not possible to separate the morphemes. Welsh is an inflecting language. 4 In polysynthetic (also called incorporating) languages, words tend to be long and morphologically complex. Amerindian languages like Apache are examples of polysynthetic languages. Most languages show mixtures of the above types. The terms analytic and synthetic are also applied to the relationship between adjectives and semantically related causative verbs: analytic synthetic make better improve make clean/cleaner clean/cleanse and between variants such as: check the truth of verify give food to feed See: derivation, morpheme, synthetic, word formation. International English usage 46
57. 57. anaphora In connected speech and writing many items refer back to others in the discourse. A sentence such as: He has! for example, is only comprehensible if both he and the action performed have previously been mentioned as in: John hasnt delivered the paper yet. He has! The term applied to backward reference is anaphora, a word which comes from Greek anapherein meaning to carry back. Reference need not, however, be backward. In the following introductory sentence from a magazine story: He was tall, dark, handsome and at twenty-eight John Smith was already a power in the city. we can only understand he by referring forward to John Smith. This type of reference is called cataphora, and it is a device favoured by people who wish to create a sense of mystery or expectancy. The term anaphora is frequently used to refer to both forward and backward reference. See: discourse analysis, pro-forms. and And is a co-ordinating conjunction, that is, it joins units of equal value: Tom and Jerry the good and the bad He sang and danced. She was kind and gentle. I put them on the table and on the chairs. International English usage 47
58. 58. Often in colloquial speech and replaces to, especially in imperative constructions using come, go and try: Come and have a good time. Go and see him at once. Try and call in when you have time. Some scholars have criticised this usage as sloppy or inelegant; others have shown that there can be a semantic difference between, for example: He came and saw me. and: He came to see me. in that only in the second sentence did he come for the purpose of seeing me. Many speakers use the structures interchangeably. Stylists used to condemn the use of and, but or so at the beginning of sentences. The practice is more acceptable today, especially in the representation of colloquial styles. It can be a useful literary device, as in the writings of Swift and Hemingway, but should be used sparingly. And is frequently used with so forth/so on at the end of lists: He did his washing, cleaning, mending and so forth. She grows carrots, parsnips, turnips and so on. These phrases serve no useful purpose and should be avoided in writing and careful speech. Either they should be omitted: He did his washing, cleaning and mending. or replaced with a phrase which provides more information: She grows carrots, parsnips, turnips and other root vegetables. See: conjunction. International English usage 48
59. 59. Anglicism An Anglicism is a word, expression or idiom which is characteristic of the English language. Language-specific structures such as the method of indicating possession: the ministers authority can be considered Anglicisms. Anglicism, and its equivalent Briticism, is more frequently applied, however, to a usage that does not occur in the USA, for example lecturer (US professor). See: Americanism, Anglo-English, UK and US words. Anglo-English The word English is increasingly ambiguous. It can refer to mother-tongue English, international English or any variety of the language spoken in any part of the world. It is particularly ambiguous in England, where it is frequently used to mean both the English of England and the English of the UK. To avoid confusion, the term Anglo- English is sometimes used to refer to the varieties of English spoken in England; British English has the wider connotation of the types of English used in Britain, that is, England, Scotland and Wales; and UK English comprehends the varieties occurring in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. See: Standard English, UK English. Anglo-Irish This term has been used to refer to: 1 the English gentry who were granted lands in Ireland in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century 2 the type of English used by these people, often virtually identical in the written medium to the educated variety in England, but marked in the spoken medium by the retention of certain features of pronunciation that changed in England. The most obvious retention was the /e/ sound in words like receive and tea. The name of the Anglo-Irish International English usage 49
60. 60. poet Yeats rhymes with hates whereas the name of the English poet Keats rhymes with heats. 3 the literature written by people who were born in Ireland but were of English origin. Among such writers were Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. 4 the literature of people born in Ireland who were not of English origin but who used English as a literary medium. Among these are Sean OCasey, James Joyce and Seamus Heaney. 5 the English used by Irish people whose ancestral mother tongue was Gaelic. There are marked differences in the speech of people whose ancestors spoke English and those whose ancestors spoke Gaelic. The former differs only superficially from the English of their peers in other parts of the UK; the latter shows the influence of Gaelic in phonology, vocabulary, idiom and grammar. Recently, linguists have called this variety Hiberno-English, reserving the term Anglo-Irish for the language of the English who settled in Ireland and for the literature written by their descendants. See: Hiberno-English, Irish English. Anglo-Romani Romani, in one of its many dialects, is the mother tongue of perhaps 50% of the six to ten million Gypsies in the world. The Romanis originated, not in Egypt as Gypsy suggests, but in northern India and Romani (or Romnimos) is an inflected language closely related to Hindi. Below is part of the Lords Prayer in Romnimos: Amro dad, ka shan aro ravnos, t avel Tiro nav parikedo. Our father, who art in+the heaven, that become Thy name esteemed. T avel Tiro kralisesko them; t aven kede Tire lava That comes Thy kingly land; that becomes done Thy words ar o them odzha-sar ar o ravnos. in the land same-as in the heaven. In the UK for the past five hundred years some Romani people have also spoken Anglo- Romani, a restructured Romani also used by Romanis in the USA, Australia and South Africa. Anglo-Romani contains many English words and morphemes, as can be seen in the following version of part of the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15): But his dadrus penned: My chavvi, tutis with mandi But his father said: My son, you are with me sor the cherus and tuti can have sor of my kovels always and you can have all of my possessions Anglo-Romani shares features with Lewis Carrolls Jabberwocky in which the syntax is English but much of the vocabulary is new: International English usage 50
61. 61. Twas brillig and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. See: Gypsy, pidgins and creoles. animal terms All languages seem to have similes and metaphors based on the perceived or assumed similarity between human beings and animals. In English, many everyday language uses are based on metaphor, as can be seen from a brief listing of the commonest nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs applied to people and deriving from animal names or characteristics. Nouns ape, ass, baboon, badger, bear, beaver, bird, bitch, bulldog, canary, cat, chicken, clam, cock, cow, crow, cuckoo, dog, donkey, elephant, fox, goat, goose, gopher, guineapig, hen, hog, horse, kitten, lamb, lark, lion, louse, magpie, march hare, minx, mole, monkey, mouse, mule, ox, parrot, peacock, pig, pup(py), rabbit, rat, shark, sheep, squirrel, snake, stoolpigeon, toad, tortoise, turkey, turtle, viper, weasel, wolf, worm. Verbs As well as many of the above nouns which can be used as verbs, the following animal attributes can occur as verbs: bark, bleat, bug, catnap, claw, ferret (out), flap, flounder, fly, gallop, gobble, growl, hare, hiss, lionise, paw, peck, pussyfoot, roar, rook, snap, snarl, snort, toady. Adjectives bearish, bullish, bullnecked, catty, dog-eared, dogged, dovetailed, elephantine, fishy, flighty, foxy, hare-brained, kittenish, lousy, mousy, pig-headed, ratty, sheepish. Adverbs Many adverbs can be formed from the adjectives above. See: metaphor, simile. -ant, -ent A number of words have two forms: a noun form ending in -ant and an adjective ending in -ent: a dependant a dependent child a pendant pendent clouds a propellant propellent fuel The following nouns often cause spelling problems: International English usage 51
62. 62. attendant/ce independent/ce relevant/ce superintendent transcendent/ce See: spelling. ante-, anti- Ante- is a prefix meaning before: Before her child was born she attended an antenatal clinic, and after the birth she received postnatal care. Anti- is a prefix meaning against: He manned an anti-aircraft gun during the war. See: affix, problem pairs. antecedent This term is used of a unit to which a later unit refers. Thus, in the sentences: The cat that John found was very small. It was also very old. the cat is the antecedent of both that and it. The personal pronouns he, she, it, they and the relative pronouns always have antecedents. Often, auxiliary verbs have antecedents: John loved cats. He really did. See: anaphora, auxiliary, discourse analysis, pro-forms, pronoun. International English usage 52
63. 63. antithesis Antithesis is the stylistic technique of juxtaposin